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Casinos' Roles Debated During Problem Gaming Awareness Week

Everyone agrees that compulsive gambling is a problem. Now the question is this: Who is responsible for preventing it and helping problem gamblers?

The gaming industry says it's a communitywide issue, one that every corporation and organization needs to deal with. To that end, the Nevada Council on Problem Gambling and the Nevada Resort Association -- both bankrolled by the gaming industry -- this week (Aug. 2-6) pushed for widespread community involvement in their annual "Responsible Gaming Awareness Week."

"Although the (gaming) industry is providing this product, for them to take sole responsibility for every potential possibility from the use of that product doesn't make much sense," said Carol O'Hare, executive director of the Nevada Council on Problem Gambling. "This is not a gaming problem, this is a people problem."

But gaming critics think the industry is merely trying to pass the buck for a problem it created.

"They'll help (compulsive gamblers) get to someone, but who's going to pay for the treatment?" said Tom Grey, executive director of the National Coalition Against Gaming Expansion. "If you make the mess, you should clean up the mess."

The extent of problem gambling in America is widely disputed. The American Gaming Association says it affects less than 1 percent of the population, citing a Harvard study that it funded. Gambling opponents claim that number is in excess of 10 percent.

The National Gambling Impact Study Commission said 15.5 million Americans are problem or pathological gamblers. And a UNLV study, currently under way, claims that an average of 6.6 percent of Clark County residents are problem gamblers.

The council and the NRA have been successful, to some extent, in convincing Nevada's larger nongaming employees to become involved in their compulsive gambling awareness efforts. Nongaming employers involved in this year's awareness week include the city of Las Vegas, Clark County, the Clark County School District, the Las Vegas-Clark County Library District, the Las Vegas Valley Water District, Nevada Power Co., Southwest Gas Corp. and Sprint.

Each entity is distributing the council's help line information to its employees. This will reach a combined 100,000 employees, the council says.

"It's a really worthwhile program, and long overdue," Sprint spokesman Rob McCoy said. "We're very involved in the community, and we feel it's incumbent upon us to make this a better place to live and work."

Lori Rugle, clinical director for Trimeridian Inc., a for-profit treatment service for compulsive gamblers, believes it's fair to ask nongaming entities to help address the problem.

"People in Nevada don't have to pay (state income) taxes because gaming subsidizes so many things in the state," Rugle said. "So we're all benefiting."

Most nongaming participants are merely redistributing materials paid for by the council and its backers, though some are going further.

Southwest Gas, for example, will work with recovering compulsive gamblers, giving them more time to pay their bills if they're burdened with debts. This is a policy Southwest offers to anyone suffering with financial difficulties, Southwest Gas spokesman Roger Buehrer said.

"The important thing is that they call us first," Buehrer said. "We can't help them if the service has been turned off. But if they let us know, that's where we can be of benefit."

The library district agreed to display winning posters from "Project 21," a scholarship program sponsored by seven Nevada hotel-casinos. The posters, designed by state high school and college students, carry the message that gambling by those younger than 21 is illegal. The posters do not carry any kind of logo from a gaming company. The program awarded $34,000 in scholarships this year.

James Butler, vice president and general counsel of Harrah's-Las Vegas, said the library displays are the first step in getting the posters out into the community, in front of teenagers. Other places he'd like to see the posters on display are arcades, movie theaters and malls.

"I'd rather they went into an arcade than just sitting around my office," Butler said.

Grey criticized the concept of a casino promoting the distribution of anti-gambling materials.

"That's what the liquor people do," Grey said. "What we need to say to kids is, 'gambling is dangerous.' The industry should stay out of it altogether. It's a way of marketing."

Most of the Project 21 materials are neutral on gambling itself, and instead battle the concept of underage gambling. Some of the public service announcements produced by students, however, were hardly flattering. One carried a warning about the problems of compulsive gambling.

"Kick the habit before you start," the video said. "Gambling is addictive."

Another showed computerized imagery of a teenager pulling the handle on a slot. Suddenly sprouting fangs, the machine leaned down and swallowed the underage player.

Clark County schools are also trying to get the word out to students. Jane Rodich, director of counselors for the district, said she has been distributing compulsive gambling educational materials to counselors in the district for years. These are Council-funded brochures, urging the counselors to direct students to the toll-free help line operated by the Council.

"For my purposes, there's a lot of issues out there," Rodich said. "I'm going to use referrals, as I would for any other concern."

The other element of Gaming Awareness Week has been compulsive gambling by those who are legally allowed to play. How to keep those players out of casinos is a much trickier issue.

Resources are available, but the compulsive gambler must be the one to take the first step.

Casinos and convenience store machines now have brochures pointing customers to the toll-free number. This number is staffed 24 hours a day by crisis counselors specializing in gambling addiction. They'll try to ascertain if the caller actually suffers from compulsive gambling, then direct the caller to resources in the community, such as Gamblers Anonymous or treatment professionals.

Casinos in the area also have a standard practice of barring patrons with gambling addictions, but only if that person requests it.

Grey believes the industry should go further, and bar patrons who exhibit compulsive gambling behavior -- even if that means barring patrons without their consent. This would be similar to a bartender refusing to serve a patron who is obviously drunk, he said.

Another method of reducing compulsive behavior is getting credit out of the casino, Grey said, both by eliminating "markers" and barring ATMs from the casino floor.

"They know their gamblers better than the gamblers know themselves," Grey said. "It's very easy to pick out these pathological people, based on their line of credit, what they're doing, their financing. They should say, 'We're not going to continue to take their money, we're not going to do business with them.'

"But the only way they can minimize pain is at the expense of profit. The people that spend the most are the pathological people. We know that, they know that, but they won't admit it. They're in the horns of a dilemma."

But Butler responded that a policy of actively barring patrons is dangerous. Compulsive gambling is a disorder that takes a trained professional months to diagnose, he said, and it's not something that can be done effectively by an average casino worker.

"Our employees aren't social therapists, and we don't expect that our employees can do that," Butler said. "They can direct people to the brochures, to the 800 number. But I certainly don't want a bunch of people on the floor looking over shoulders.

"We don't want the average employee thinking they can be Sigmund Freud."

Rugle agreed, saying that identifying a problem gambler isn't as easy as picking out someone who has had one too many to drink at the bar.

"Most of us can tell if someone is falling down drunk, because substance abuse is pretty limiting," Rugle said. "With gambling, you just keep on going. The casino worker doesn't know where you're getting the money from, how much money you have.

"I think seeing somebody in a casino, someone who is repeatedly losing all of their money there, you should have a clue that something's going on there. but it's not as easy as having someone pee in a cup."

O'Hare, who said that she is a recovering problem gambler, scoffed at the idea that casinos are making their profits on the backs of problem gamblers.

"The problem gambler is a customer whose value will end," O'Hare said. "Without help, they will not be a long-term customer.

"(Casinos') success is based on the social gambler who can gamble over long periods of time, the loyal customer. That is not what a problem gambler will be."

But is the 800 number sufficient? A compulsive gambler who has already depleted their resources probably couldn't afford to pay for professional treatment, and the casino industry doesn't subsidize those treatments. Gaming opponents argue that they should.

"I don't know if that's even reasonable," O'Hare said. "One of the big issues about the tobacco industry is that the product is inherently addictive. But with gambling, we don't have that guarantee that everyone that walks through the doors will become addicted.

"People who suffer from addictions frequently have other kinds of issues that may or may not be the result of their addiction. We have to be very careful to look for the single magic bullet that will resolve the problem."

But Rugle thinks industry support for treatment is long overdue. Some states that legalized gaming recently, such as Connecticut, use some of the industry's taxes to pay for treatment.

"Whether the industry does it directly, or through the state, I think that's needed in every state," Rugle said. "In Nevada, it would make sense to take a leadership role, because gambling is such a big part of the economy here.

"It's definitely needed in Nevada."

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